Esc mobo problems

From what I can piece together my daughter and her friend plug in a old AIP Pencam to the USB port and the CPU shut down. When I turned it on the option to restart from safe mode opened. The problem is that during XP start up the computer Shuts off and restarts. I removed the hard drive and installed a new 80g (thinking it was the HD)and could not install XP on it. SATA1, and SATA2 would not work. I was able to use a boot disc on SATA4 to set up partitions, but when I put the Windows XP it said that the HD did not have enough space. I reset the CMOS but still no luck. The only thing left is to flash the BIOS, but not sure if that’s going to work. I am able to get into my BIOS.

Thanks! Iwasn't sure about the HD. I put it in a friends CPU o retrieve the data and it fried his MOBO. It could have been some static though. I still have 1 CPU left but I’m scared to try it on that one. I may find a cheap MOBO to try it on or something that s easily replaced. It does have a lot of info I would like to retrieve. When it was set up it was divided in to 2 separate drives c: was OS and H: was programs & info.